Quick Share ;)

I realize I am such a wham, bam, thank you ma'am type of blog poster!  I have to categorize it as functionality and not insufficiency at this point in life!  I still have my two toddler girls at home with me all day...so I have to make posts functional around their needs.  The 2012-2013 school year will leave me with one baby at home ...and a little more free "me" time.  Fingers crossed anyways! ;)

This layout was actually created for a good friend, Jenn Juniper Leroy Alowishes Cleophus Richardson (you know who you are!)...it was really fun layering in the different die-cuts and playing with UTEE and different inks.  I will give a quick step by step on how I created the flowers and a couple of other elements on the layout.

I first began with a few scraps of printed paper from the Echo Park Happy Days collection and one of the tags from the pack.  I die-cut the flowers (Shadow Flowers by Spellbinders for DSD) with my Big Shot-using watercolor paper; I typically like to use the watercolor paper because it LURVES ink-personally, I think the colors pop and are more vibrant when applied to watercolor paper. 

 There are a couple of ways to add the ink to the die-cut, but I'm messy and just applied it direct to paper.

 Once there is sufficient coverage, I just take the best tool eva, my fingers, and move the ink around until there's full coverage on the flower.  The ink is Clearsnap's Mix'd Media Inx line for DSD, and the color is Peridot.  I absolutely LOVE, LOVE this color...it's so pretty.  The pads are super "juicy" and stay wet for an extended amount of time which makes it yummy stuff to use when embossing. 

 After I heat set/dried the ink (so it doesn't contaminate the watermark pad or rub away), I took a Color Box watermark pad and covered the die-cut pretty liberally. 

 Once the watermark is applied, I dip it into a container of clear UTEE (you could definitely use clear embossing powder for this step as well).

 Keep in mind that during the direct to paper ink application that some of the ink from your fingers will get on the backside of the die-cut as well, and it's gonna pick up some of the UTEE as well.  I didn't bother drying the backside, so while heating/melting the UTEE, I put it on a piece of wax paper so that I'm able to easily pluck it right off and keep on ticking.

And here is the finished flower.  It has a beautiful color and a beautiful almost ceramic like finish!  Easy peasy!

If you look close (pictures not showing it extremely well) I snuck some Fairy Dust (Clearsnap for Donna Salazar) on this one adhering it with Glue Gloss (Clearsnap) before I applied the clear UTEE.  Well more of experimentation to see if it would work ;)

Mady's name is some old Basic Grey chip that I've had in my stash for a while.  I liked the font, but not the color for this layout. 

So, again, I whip out some white UTEE (or embossing powder) and covered the letters not really going for perfect or full coverage...I actually liked some of the black peeking out.

The butterflies are some SUPER old Provo Craft sticky adhesive shapes that's been in my stash.  I applied it to a piece of watercolor paper, covered it with white UTEE (again embossing powder would work) and heat set it.  I honestly wasn't expecting it to bead up the way it did, but I LOVED it!  T'was a happy accident indeed ;)!  Once the UTEE cooled and dried, I fussy cut the shapes.  The UTEE added stability as well while cutting-made it much less of a headache.

There ya go!  I layered the flowers and butterflies respectively using lots of foam pop dots to achieve the look! Hope ya enjoyed this as much as I did making it. 

Supplies Used: Echo Park's Happy Days collection, Clearsnap: Fairy Dust, Glue Gloss, Watermark Pad, Mix'd Media Inx (Peridot), Ranger UTEE in clear and white, Basic Grey Dark Chocolate mini chipboard sticker letters, Canson Watercolor paper (140lb), Glimmermist (Trunk Bay), Provo Craft sticky adhesive shapes, Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher, Spellbinders Shadow Flowers die set, Want2Scrap Sprightly Sprockets, Scenic Route chipboard bird, Adirondack Paint Dabber Snow Cap, Shell Pink, book text

Happy weekend y'all!   Take care ;)!